THE PAPER FAMINE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1916, Page 2

THE PAPER FAMINE.

&ND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

NEWSPAPER TROUBES IN ENGLAND.

The war-pinch is in journalistic evidence this week. The Standard, after nearly a hundred years of life, is, if not moribund, at least in the hands of the Official Receiver, and by him was y>

terday offered at auction to whomsoever would buy it. After vain efforts to realise the reserve fixed by the Court, the property was passed in unsold. Ten thousand pounds was hid for the goodwill, copyright, receiver's interest in the machinery, and book-debts aggregating more than £BOOO, while no more than a poorly insignificant sum. was offered for the subscriptions and the advertising contracts. The next stage in the fallen' fortunes of the .Standard will-be that of private negotiation for purchase. Jn 19]0 this paper was making a net profit of £2!),000. By JOl2 that aggregate had dropped to Jt 12,000, while in 1014 the slump of war-time reduced it beyond salvation.

Our other journalistic excitement is a fierce controversy, involving bitter attacks, personal and otherwise, between the Times and the Westminster Gazette ft arose out of the Westminster's quotation of an article from a German newspaper, wherein the recent agitation by the Times, and the journals associated with it, in the matter of air raids on England, was shown to be very welcome in Germany. The Times seems to have been much angered by this doubtful publicity. At any rate, it at once fell heavily upon the Westminster Gazette, accusing that Liberal journal of any number of miscalculations before the war and weaknesses during the war, what times the Evening News, also of the Northcliffe press, proceeded to show that German interests are behind the Westminster Gazette. That paper accordingly disclosed some of the Times' present shareholders as German, and otherwise improved the occasion by a lament over the Times as we now know it and the dignified and authoritative organ it used to be. The conflict is still in progress, with signs, 'indeed, abroad that it will grow rather than dimish in fierceness—Correspondent Sydney Morning Herald. .